Earth and other unlikely worlds

Friday, February 08, 2013

Links 08/02/13

'Various theoreticians have pointed out that there is a formal
mathematical analogy between the way certain metamaterials bend light
and the way spacetime does the same thing in general relativity. In
fact, it ought to be possible to make metamaterials that mimic the
behaviour of not only our own spacetime but also many others that
cosmologist merely dream about . . . Today, Smolyaninov and a couple of buddies announce the extraordinary
news that they have done exactly this. They’ve created a metamaterial
containing many “universes” that are mathematically analogous to our
own, albeit in the three dimensions rather than four.' More here; abstract of paper here.

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Ruination Daze

In the last couple of decades, Detroit has become the unwilling poster child for late-stage post-industrial collapse. A city that was once the beating heart of the American car industry has become a real-life setting for fantasies of apocalypse. The desolation of its vast factories and assembly plants, theatres and department stores documented by aficionados of ruin porn. The urban prairies of what were once thriving inner-city residential areas returned to nature, grids of weed-grown streets and ruins interrupted only by the occasional surviving house, or the encampments of urban farmers. A laboratory for experiments in post-apocalyptic, post-industrial, post-technological science-fictional scenarios (after Detroit, after Hurricane Katrina, Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren looks increasingly prescient).

Mark Binelli's The Last Days of Detroit, Motor Cars, Motown and the Collapse of an Industrial Giant, seeks to remind the reader to the people who still live there, and are seeking ways to regenerate their city. A former Detroit native (his family ran a business in the city, but lived, as he confesses, in the suburbs), he moved back into the heart of the city for three years, hoping 'to discover something new about the city - specifically, what happens to a once-great place after it has been used up and discarded? Who sticks around and tries to make things work again? And what sorts of newcomers are drawn to the place for similar reasons?'

Binelli, a reporter on the staff of Rolling Stone magazine, is an engaging writer who gives an insider's perspective on Detroit's long history and the
complex interplay economic, political and social factors that caused its
decline. He's very good on the personalities of Detroit politicians, recent and historical scandals, and grand plans that all founder for one reason: 'No matter how dexterous or well-intentioned our elected officials, any plan to reinvent Detroit, or even adequately address the city's most fundamental crises, required the one thing Detroit lacked most of all: unimaginable amounts of money.' And his portraits of ordinary citizens, of the artists and urban hipsters attracted Detroit's quasi-anarchistic freedom (and its huge spaces and cheap rents), of a school's urban farm, the fire department of one of Detroit's poorest neighbourhoods, and the human stories underlying a murder trial, are deft, acute and sympathetic. But what's lacking is an overall narrative that knits the various threads and voices together. Binelli's portrait of the city is affectionate and fair and honest, but scrappy; like the city itself, there's no centre. But as Binelli points out, there's no single cause to Detroit's malaise, and unlike fictional apocalypses, there's no easy solution either (apart from unimaginable amounts of cold hard cash), no way of reading in the runes of the ruins which version of the future will win out. And yet he surprises himself, and the reader, by ending on an optimistic note: the ruins may not be an endpoint after all, but part of an urban metabolic cycle. What's left is the kind of naive but very human hope with which the first citizens of Detroit promoted their dreams of coming grandeur. Can we imagine futures that aren't all grimdark urban nightmares or fantasies of posturban self-reliant homesteading, but ones in which our cities find some new purpose and are reborn afresh?

Monday, February 04, 2013

At Sea In The Sea Of Stories

Every year, Locus magazine asks its stable of critics and others for nominees for its recommended reading list. Anything that's recommended by at least two people gets to be included, and the list forms the basis for the magazine's awards ballot. I'm happy to say that In The Mouth of the Whale has been included in the best SF novel category, 'Bruce Springsteen' in best novelette (or stuff that's a little too long for a short story, but not long enough for a novella), and 'Antarctica Starts Here', 'Macy Minnot's Last Christmas on Dione, Ring Racing, Fiddler's Green, The Potter's Garden' and 'The Man' in best short story. Which is very pleasing because, first, it's pretty much all the fiction I wrote last year, and second, I'm in the company of some pretty distinguished peers.

A nice little boost as I wrestle with plans and a detailed outline for the next novel, and plot out a story (or rather, a novelette) I've been commissioned to write for an anthology. The latter has to be written sooner rather than later, so until I've finished a first draft I'm putting the Quiet War instant fiction series into a very short hiatus. There are ten so far, and I still hope to bring that up to a round dozen, once I've finished with the seas of Venus.

About Me

I'm the author of more than twenty books, including novels, short story collections and a film monograph. My latest novel is Austral.
Some of my fiction and nonfiction is archived on my web site.
If you would like to contact me, details are here.